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Silenced for 1,600 years, the \"heretics\" speak for themselves in this account of the Priscillianist controversy that began in fourth-century Spain. In a close examination of rediscovered texts, Virginia Burrus provides an unusual opportunity to explore heresy from the point of view of the followers of Priscillian and to reevaluate the reliability of the historical record. Her analysis takes into account the concepts of gender, authority, and public and private space that informed established religion's response to this early Christian movement. Priscillian, who began his career as a lay teacher with particular influence among women, faced charges of heresy along with accusations of sorcery and sexual immorality following his ordination to the episcopacy. He was executed along with several of his followers circa 386. His purportedly \"gnostic\" doctrines produced controversy and division within the churches of Spain, dissension that continued into the early decades of the fifth century. Burrus's thorough and wide-ranging study enlarges upon previous scholarship, particularly in bringing a feminist perspective to bear on the gendered constructions of religious orthodoxies, making a valuable contribution to the recent commentary that explores new ways of looking at early Christian controversies. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996. Many titles in the Voices Revived program are also newly available as ebooks, offered at a discounted price to support wider access to scholarly work.

This article explores how ancient rhetorical theories about the improvement of human memory were applied to manuscripts in the form of paratextual ordering systems. It then considers the intellectual implications of these technological changes in the management of textual knowledge. A sequentially ordered system for dividing textual information into “chapters” or “verses” proved powerful for both mnemonic arts and textual arts. The article next explores a specific example of paratextual technologies in Priscillian of Avila’s fourth-century CE Canones Epistularum Pauli Apostoli, which is one of the most sophisticated cross-referencing systems ever produced prior to printed texts. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of textual divisions and citation schemes for the work of theology. The test case for this is Priscillian’s “versification” of the Pauline corpus for purposes of textual abstraction (the extraction and reorganization of numerically divided textual parts) in service of theological abstraction (the attempt to create systematic wholes out of the newly reorganized parts).

This paper examines a comment by Priscillian (d. c. 385) in his Liber apologeticus that certain people erroneously applied to God the unusual Latin neologism, masculofemina. He contrasts their perspective with scriptural teaching about the Holy Spirit being poured out on both men and women. This raises two questions, namely, how Priscillian’s comment relates to accusations he faced of encouraging dangerous intimacy between men and women and the source of his information about their teaching. This paper argues that the central thrust of Priscillian’s teaching is around the notion that the spirit of prophecy was manifested in both sexes, but that he distinguished his teaching from that of Valentinian gnostics to defend his own orthodoxy. It argues that Priscillian acquired this teaching about God as masculofemina from the translation into Latin of the Aduersus haereses of Irenaeus of Lyons (d. c. 202). The term also occurs within the writing of Marius Victorinus (c. 359–61) in defense of Catholic Christianity. Priscillian drew on Irenaeus to defend the orthodoxy of his notion that the gift of prophecy was given to both men and women.

This article presents, for the first time in English, a translation of the two letters of the usurping emperor Magnus Maximus that are to be found within the Collectio Avellana (letters 39 and 40). The letters—from Maximus to the Emperor Valentinian II and from Maximus to Siricius, bishop of Rome—are each introduced with an extensive discussion of their subject matter, the circumstances of their composition, and their probable date. The article then considers possible reasons for these letters’ unusual survival; as letters of a usurping emperor, one would have expected them to be destroyed, and the article explores how we may understand their inclusion in the Collectio Avellana. Finally, the translations are given, with extensive commentary in their notes.

A treatise On the Trinity, once ascribed to Priscillian of Avila, but now more commonly held to be the work of a disciple, quotes the aphorism \"the name of the Father is the Son\" as an apostolic saying. In fact it appears to be a quotation of the Gospel of Truth, affinities to which are also visible in the teaching of this treatise on the procession of the Word from the Father, the role of the Holy Spirit in this procession, the universal bondage of the human race in oblivion, the revelation of the Father's face to the elect, and the common brotherhood of the elect with Christ. After noting a further affinity between the Gospel of Truth and another Priscillianist writing, the article concludes with some reflections on the use of apocryphal literature in the fourth century by authors whose theology was in most respects orthodox.

Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure.Through the Eye of a Needleis a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity. Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven. Through the Eye of a Needlechallenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.

El relato de Prisciliano conservado en el tratado Liber ad Damasum y las informaciones ofrecidas por Sulpicio Severo en su Chronica, no concuerdan a la hora de valorar las conclusiones alcanzadas por los obispos reunidos en el Concilio de Zaragoza del año 380. Para esclarecer la intrincada cuestión de la eventual condena de Prisciliano en el sínodo caesaraugustano, es necesario revisar las actas del concilio y confrontar los datos que estas ofrecen, con las informaciones presentes en otros textos que hacen referencia a la reunión episcopal; abordar las diferentes teorías esgrimidas hasta la fecha sobre el argumento; y, finalmente, proponer una nueva hipótesis conclusiva.

Pauline theology is a well-established undertaking in modern New Testament studies, and yet it is almost entirely without precedent prior to the nineteenth century. This article explores the enterprise of Pauline theology by considering an important and overlooked exception to its otherwise exclusively modern provenance: Priscillian of Avila's fourth-century Canons on the Letters of the Apostle Paul. The key to Priscillian's dogmatic synthesis of Paul's thought was his innovative ‘versification’ of Paul's letters, which facilitated efficient citation and cross-referencing of epistolary data. This article uses Priscillian's literary creation to examine the intriguing correlation of technologies for ordering textual knowledge with the systematic abstraction of Pauline theology.

En el presente trabajo se realiza un análisis comparativo de las escuelas filosóficas tardoantiguas en Oriente y Occidente en su funcionamiento, organización, materias de estudio y las características de sus líderes, así como de las redes académicas y políticas en las que se desenvolvieron. Se estudian los casos particulares del emperador Juliano en el contexto oriental y del obispo hispano Prisciliano en el occidental, ambos formados dentro de los cánones de la paideia clásica.

Abstract This article studies the two earliest witnesses to the Apostles' Creed which have often been regarded with suspicion because they were written by \"heretical\" bishop-theologians Marcellus of Ancyra and Priscillian of Avila. Assessing the thought of Marcellus and Priscillian in the light of their authentic treatises, it is contended that their respective understandings of Trinitarian theology cannot be identified with modalist monarchianism. Consequently, their creeds should not be regarded as smoke screen for their allegedly deviant doctrines. Rather, these should be regarded as the first extant evidence for the declaratory Apostles' Creed.